When homeowners form a revocable trust and move the title of their NY property to the trust, what is the correct way to update their homeowners insurance policy? Is it to write a new policy in the name of the Trust or is it to leave the policy in the names of the homeowners and show the trust as an additional insured? Unfortunately, this is not what was done with respect to our primary residence in Brooklyn, NY. In the newly issued 3-year policy, they dropped our personal names and show the Trust as the ‘Named Insured’. The agent insists this is the correct way to update the policy when title passes to the Trust. In his words, “The policy follows the deed.” Consequently, we lost our personal liability coverage. We were told we would need to take out a separate personal liability policy (which we did for fear of the exposed risk).
Additionally, within the new policy, the Trust is covered by commercial liability, and so we were also informed that we would need two separate Umbrella policies: a personal policy to cover ourselves and a commercial umbrella policy to cover the Trust. (Neither of which have we yet done.)
I can’t tell you how much time (and frustration!) I have wasted trying to sort this all out. Can you advise how best to proceed?